![]() License plate readers, which are usually installed on streetlights, highway overpasses or police squad cars, capture the details of passing cars and help police keep track of the vehicles that pass through certain locations or neighborhoods. Photograph: Lenin Nolly/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock The information collected by companies like Flock is particularly alarming, experts say, because it can help police paint a deeply detailed picture of the movements of specific vehicles and individuals.Ībortion activists have increasingly sounded the alarm about surveillance tech. In August, for instance, Facebook came under fire for providing Nebraska police with the private messages between a mother and daughter who were being investigated for allegedly conducting an illegal abortion. License plate reader companies are just one of several tech companies that are facing scrutiny for the ways in which they provide data or technology to law enforcement seeking to prosecute abortion cases. ![]() We support local governments enforcing their local laws.” “So it would be inaccurate to characterize Flock as being for or against any particular issue. “We expect cities in California may operate differently than cities in Texas or Illinois or Rhode Island,” he continued. Thomas said the company “trusts” and “provides technology for” the “democratically elected governing bodies, and their chosen law enforcement personnel, to enforce the laws that they enact”. Our perspective is that we do not enact laws, and our mission is not specific to any particular laws.” “Our position at Flock remains consistent in response to the Dobbs decision. Technology like Flock’s could be used to “criminalize people seeking reproductive health and further erode people’s ability to move about their daily lives free from being tracked and traced”, said Chris Gilliard, a tech fellow at Social Science Research Council, an independent non-profit research organization.įlock says the supreme court’s decision on abortion and warnings about how law enforcement may use its services in abortion-related prosecutions haven’t prompted it to reconsider its mission: “Flock’s mission as a business is to eliminate crime,” Josh Thomas, the vice-president of external affairs at Flock, said. Can I trust this company with our people’s data? Dave Maass, Electronic Frontier Foundation Now, privacy advocates are warning that the extensive surveillance network could be weaponized against people seeking abortions in states that have enacted bans and restrictions on the practice following the US supreme court’s decision to repeal federal abortion protections, including by allowing police to monitor abortion clinics and the vehicles that are seen around it.
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